Francisco Xavier Alarcón (February 21, 1954 – January 15, 2016) was an American poet and educator.
Alarcón was one of the few Chicano poets to have “gained recognition while writing mostly in Spanish” within the United States. His poems have been also translated into Irish and Swedish. He made many guest appearances at public schools so that he could help inspire and influence young people to write their own poetry especially because he felt that children are “natural poets.”
IN A NEIGHBORHOOD IN LOS ANGELES
Francisco X. Alarcón
I learned
Spanish
from my grandma
mijito
don’t cry
she’d tell me
on the mornings
my parents
would leave
to work
at the fish
canneries
my grandma
would chat
with chairs
sing them
old
songs
dance
waltzes with them
in the kitchen
when she’d say
niño barrigón
she’d laugh
with my grandma
I learned
to count clouds
to recognize
mint leaves
in flowerpots
my grandma
wore moons
on her dress
Mexico’s mountains
deserts
ocean
in her eyes
I’d see them
in her braids
I’d touch them
in her voice
smell them
one day
I was told:
she went far away
but still
I feel her
with me
whispering
in my ear:
mijito
========
MY FATHER
Fransisco Alarcon
my father
and I greet
each other
guarded
as if
sealing
a truce
on a
battlefield
we sit down
to eat like
two strangers
yet I know
beneath it all
he too
rejects
that affliction
that folly
that nightmare
called
macho
Mexico’s mountains
deserts
ocean
in her eyes
I’d see them
in her braids
I’d touch them
in her voice
smell them
one day
I was told:
she went far away
but still
I feel her
with me
whispering
in my ear:
mijito